me
responsibility." In brief, it was an intimation, "If you feel not equal
to the emergency, perhaps you can find a man not a thousand miles away
who is equal to it."

Lincoln, in his reply, showed transcendent tact. Although an
inexperienced local politician, suddenly placed at the head of a great
nation, in a tremendous crisis, and surrounded in his cabinet and in
Congress by men of acknowledged expert ability in statecraft, he had his
own ideas, but he needed the counsel and help of these men as well. He
could not afford to part with the services of a man like Seward, nor
would he offend him by any assumption of dignity or resentment at his
unasked advice. He good-naturedly replied, in substance: "The policy
laid down in my inaugural met your distinct approval, and it has thus
far been exactly followed. As to attending to its prosecution, if this
must be done, I must do it, and I wish, and suppose I am entitled to
have, the advice of all the cabinet."

After this, no member of the cabinet dared to attempt to usurp any
authority which belonged to the elected Commander-in-chief of the army
and navy,--unless it were Chase, at a later time. As the head of the
government in whom supreme Federal power was invested in time of war,
Lincoln was willing and eager to consult his cabinet, but reserved his
decisions and assumed all responsibilities. He probably made mistakes,
but who could have done better on the whole? The choice of the nation
was justified by results.

It is not my object in this paper to attempt to compress the political
and military history of the United States during the memorable
administration of Mr. Lincoln. If one wishes to know the details he must
go to the ten octavo biographical volumes of Lincoln's private
secretaries, to the huge and voluminous quarto reports of the
government, to the multifarious books on the war and its actors. I can
only glance at salient points, and even here I must confine myself to
those movements which are intimately connected with the agency and
influence of Lincoln himself. It is his life, and not a history of the
war, that it is my business to present. Nor has the time come for an
impartial and luminous account of the greatest event of modern times.
The jealousy and dissensions of generals, the prejudices of the people
both North and South, the uncertainty and inconsistency of much of the
material published, and the conceit of politicians, alike prevent a
history which